... love deeply ....

so jesse at lowe's runs the big ole saw contraption that can cut giant boards ... is that a band saw? a circular saw? a cabinet saw? i'll have to ask jesse when i go back ... anyway, i had this sheet of ply wood i needed cutting up so i just took it to him and said i'd like this cut into different sized bits .. can you do this ... i don't want regular sizes or really even any the same, so just zip zip zip and you''ll be done ... he couldn't do it ... he whipped out his tape measure and gave me multitudes of perfect squares .....only on the last row of his cutting did i say can i have some that aren't squares? so .. mostly squares ... alas, i try to go outside my box with the wood, and unknowingly he tucks me right back into my box of safe squareness ... i believe that the last 200 or so canvases that i have bought have ALL been square ... square i am ....

love deeply .. pretend it's not a square for me ....

hahahahahahahahahahaha....

this is done on a smidge small piece of two by four... and it's probably almost four inches tall and a bit more than two inches wide ... a tiny little reminder to laugh .... at yourself ... at your kids ... at your dog ....at a book or tv show ... jolly frivolity laughter ... laugh more ...

... unlocked ....

 this is a 24 inch square canvas ... it is very textured ... with gesso ... what tool you ask? well ... to get all that texture i used the most fab tool ... a plastic bag ... a target bag to be more specific ...

i fell in love with the texture and then just wanted to keep it all rough and yummy like that .... so i just had it sit around in my studion for a while so i could watch it (it didn't do anything or change a bit) ... so after some admiring i decided to go simple ...

three little iconic bits to tell a story .... two of them all sleek and slick in contrast to my background .... one of them a pop of red ... big pop of color ....

let's call it a metaphor ... what's it mean to you?

... miracles ....

 there are no miracles for those who don't have faith in them .... that's a french proverb ....

i think it ties right in with optimism ... if you think something grand is going to happen, isn't there a better chance that it will than if you were a pessimist sad sack and thought it could never happen?

are you an optimist? do you believe in miracles?

masterpiece ....

this is from ephesians ... you are god's masterpiece ....i try to keep that in my head ... well, not so much about me, but more about other people ... particularly other people that are bugging me ... to try and have a little grace ....

my kids go to a church school .. oh ... went ... two of them have moved on ... but, in a lower grade, it was back to school night and all the parents were sitting in the fourth grade desks ... listening to the teacher talk about the daily routine in her classroom and what they were going to learn ... then she asked if we had questions ... one mom said, what's your classroom management system or really, what do you do when my son is being badly behaved ... that sweet, sweet, sweet teacher said ... well, the first think i do when a child is being unruly is remember that he or she is created in god's image and one of god's masterpieces of creation .... that usually makes whatever they were doing not so bad .....

even if you don't have ephesians2.10 in your faith , cutting someone some slack seems like a good idea ....

... sunshine ....

do you have people that are like sunshine to you? that you can count on to light you up? make you happy? fill you with joy just by seeing them?

i do ... i have lots actually .... my kids definitely ... and my husband ... and usually my dog ... but not when i get that why haven't you walked me in so long look ....

i also have some pals that maybe don't know ... or maybe they do ... that just seeing them makes me happy that they are like sunshine... some friends more than others ... some people just spread good karma and happy feelings ... do you have friends like that? the one you call when your skies are cloudy ... or the one that you see regularly ... or the one that you miss when you haven't seen her in too long?

this is a wee collage on wood .. i think it is about six inches tall and three inches wide ... are two by fours three inches? i don't think so? maybe this was a one by three and i just got a snip off the end ... i wonder what the rest of the board is going to be? a table, a fence, a shelf, a house wall? jesse at lowe's has been collecting srap bits for me ... love that ...

winnie the pooh ....

christopher robin said to pooh bear: you are braver than you believe and stronger than you seem and smarter than you think ....

thank you a.a.milne .....

i called out to little.e.beck.artist in target today cause i didn't see her ... and she walked up to me kind of exasperated ... probably annoyed i'd lost track of her when she was just right there browsing and shopping .... she said WHAT do you need ... i really didn't need anything and i said, i just need you to love me forever .... and she said ok , no problem, i will love you forever ... and went back to her shopping ...

no problem, she'll love me forever ... i wish everyone remembered to say nice things more often ... like christopher robin ...

... perfect ....

another collage in my series on reclaimed wood scraps .... rather than going to the landfill, here it is .... all arted up ....

the size is about 8 by 12 i'm guessing .... bigger than a dictionary page, anyway ....

you are perfect at being you .... don't we all wish we could hear that though?  .. knowing it is one thing ... hearing it is another thing entirely ... and i suppose if we heard it more we might start knowing it and believing it ....

... surprise them ....

this is another in my series on wood ... i think it is about 8 inches square ... the map is from a fat book of metro atlanta road maps .... the sentiment is just a wee bit of encouragement .... you can do it!

... keep looking

... i've begun a series of collages on wood .... this one is about 8 inches square ... on a thin plywood that i got jesse at lowe's to slice up for me ... into manageable pieces ...

keep looking you will find it ... what are you looking for? at the moment i'm looking for time .... more moments to do things i want to do rather than the moments that are squashed together FULL of the things i have to do ...

... amazing ...

.... ok .. i'm trying .... i've been squeezing in painting time ... but not yet squeezing in blogging time ....

but i'm trying ... and you are amazing for sticking with my sporadic blogging .. i dedicate this collage to you, faithful reader .... and if you aren't a faithful reader and have just stumbled upon this post, that's ok, i'm sure you have amazing qualities that i just don't know about yet ...

so ... i've been trying to work on wood lately ... reclaimed wood .. scraps .. recycled stuff ... so, though there is no wood showing in this pic, i promise it is there, behind these collage papers ....

birds ... and feelings ... and allusions .....

this is a 12 inch square canvas .... dictionary pages in the back ground ... some letter stamping for extra texture and illusion of hidden secrets .... allusion of hidden secrets ... i believe i mean allusion ... but the allusion could be an illusion as well, huh?

this painting has a much different feeling to me than most of my paintings .... what feelings does it call up for you?